This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (also Kumaraswam)
Be your Self, at war with oneself.
The great duty of God’s children is to love one another. This duty on earth takes the name and form of the law of humanity. We are to recognize all men as brethren, no matter where born, or under what sky, or institution or religion they may live. Every man belongs to the race, and owes a duty to mankind... Men cannot, by combining themselves into narrower or larger societies, sever the sacred, blessed bond which joins them to their kind... The law of humanity must reign; over the assertion of all human rights.
Assertion | Character | Children | Duty | Earth | God | Humanity | Law | Love | Man | Mankind | Men | Race | Religion | Rights | Sacred | Blessed |
Skepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been men of faith.
Character | Faith | Heart | History | Men | Principles | Skepticism | World |
G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.
The failure of our modern world, with its moral and ethical collapse, may be traced directly to our spiritual ignorance and moral disobedience. The ethical conditions under which we live are disgracefully unsanitary. It is futile to expect peace and goodwill on earth while our homes are infested with the germs of selfishness, irreverence and lust. The world-wide epidemic of hatred, cruelty, murder and war is the inevitable result of our moral and spiritual disobedience. We cannot break the laws of the universe with impunity.
Character | Cruelty | Disobedience | Earth | Failure | Ignorance | Inevitable | Lust | Murder | Peace | Selfishness | Universe | War | World | Failure | Murder |
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.
Aspiration | Character | Faith | Love |
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.
Character | Energy | Freedom | Growth | Intelligence | Liberty | People | Power | Progress | Spirit | Worth | Intellect |
Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Character | Determination | Education | Genius | Men | Nothing | Persistence | Will | World | Talent |
Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré
The only perfection I know of is a hearty love of god, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Charity is the only virtue which rightly unites us to God and man. Such union is our final aim and end, and all the rest is mere delusion.
Character | Charity | Delusion | God | Love | Man | Perfection | Rest | Virtue | Virtue | God |
Many men who spend an hour a day in physical exercises to keep fit refuse to spend an hour a week in the cultivation of their morals and their ethics. We have put so little emphasis on developing our souls that our children are beginning to doubt if we have any souls at all.
Beginning | Character | Children | Cultivation | Day | Doubt | Ethics | Little | Men |
A religion giving dark views of God, and infusing superstitious fear of innocent enjoyment, instead of aiding sober habits, will, by making men abject and sad, impair their moral force and prepare them for intemperance as a refuge from depression or despair.
Character | Depression | Despair | Enjoyment | Fear | Force | Giving | God | Intemperance | Men | Religion | Will |
The domestic relations precede, and in our present existence are worth more than all our other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Home is the chief school of human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life.
Character | Existence | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Present | Tears | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |